


Fix you

by Multifandom_damnation



Series: Brothers, Remember? [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, I suppose, Late Night Conversations, Loss of Trust, Minor Keyleth/Vax'ildan (Critical Role), Minor Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia, Past Character Death, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred, Soul Selling, Stitches, Survivor Guilt, Team as Family, Trust Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, de Rolo Family Headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 15:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15643140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Percy is getting better at touching and opening up.Vax is better with asking for help when he needs it.They are both getting better at loving each other wholly and honestly.What else are brothers for?





	Fix you

**Author's Note:**

> Shit summary but I promise the story is better. Not by much. but a little bit better.

Closing his eyes, Vax bit his lip in an attempt to distract himself from the sharp pull-tug pain of the needle threading its way through the skin on his back, tried to focus on the feeling of his teeth in his bottom lip and the coloured dots dancing across his closed eyelids instead of-

“Stop moving.” Percy snaps for what seems to the hundredth time. Vax must have shifted again. “It’s your fault this is happening anyway.”

Vax moved his arms into a better position on the back of the chair before he rested his chin on them. “I never said it wasn’t.”

Percy sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot these days. “I’m not talking about the cut you twit, I’m talking about you sneaking into my room in the middle of the night, dragging me here half asleep and expecting me to do my best stitch work.” A pause as Percy whipped blood off the half-elves back. “And I think the main reason you’re a twit is that you’ve come to me, and not Keyleth or Vex.”

“Do you really think I’m stupid enough to go to them?” He asked, “You know they’d eat me out alive then fuss over me for days and never let me go again.”

“I think you're stupid for flying half asleep over a cliff and then going over the limit,” Percy muttered gently, without any bite or contempt but it was so quiet that if Vax wasn’t part elf, he would have missed it. He supposes that was probably what Percy was hoping for.

“Not everyone has a place they can go to lock themselves away when they need solitude,” Vax grumbled, reaching a hand up to steady the bun that was slowly sliding sideways off his head. They had tied it up with one of Cassandra’s old hair ties that they had found in a drawer so Percy had better access to the wound though Vax was now slightly regretting it.

If Percy was surprised that Vax had heard him, he did a very good job of hiding it. “You have the temple.” Vax resisted the urge to flinch if only so it didn’t mess up Percy’s stitches. “I built it specifically for that purpose. Or if you had need of another place, a room in the castle or a home like your sister then I can quite easily have that arranged-”

“No Freddy, that’s not what I mean.” Vax sighed.

Percy was silent for a moment. “Why didn’t you ask Scanlan to heal you?” He asked quietly, as though he didn’t want the silence to continue. “I’m sure he would have been more than happy to.”

Vax snorted. “Now you really are pulling my leg. He wouldn’t have let me hear the end of it until the day I died.”

Percy made a humming sound that sounded suspiciously like someone trying to mask a chuckle.

They sat together in comfortable silence, Percy focusing on his steady hand and the disappearing needle burying into Vax’s skin, Vax silently recounting the evening's events in his head.

Needing space after a Raven-Queen-and-death induced nightmare, Vax had left Keyleth’s side and tucked her back in before he tiptoed out of the room, closing the door silently behind him. He had walked out the cold night air of Whitestone, avoiding the guards on patrol by sticking to the shadows and made his way the hours-long trek up the Alabaster Sierras, past the long dead and rotted body of that blue lightning creature that Vax has long forgotten the name of, past the highest points in the mountain tops and the carved in ravine, but straight towards the bridge the harpies had eaten their horses at, flinging himself down it and shooting out his wings before his plummet could reach the bottom.

For a good hour, Vax had flown across the mountains and the rocky trails and the sky to clear his head, eyes dropping shut in his sudden exhaustion when the wings disappeared in a burst of jet-black feathers, dropping him in a nose dive towards the hard stone peaks that rose to meet him. With a couple of flips, a dagger into the wall and an almost-dislocated shoulder Vax sild mostly down the cliff face, toppling the last few feet to land on rocks, earning himself a deep cut for his troubles that woke him up instantly.

He had dragged his slightly-mangled carcases half-heartedly back to Whitestone but with Pike visiting her uncle, Vax had sought out Percival, opening his door without a sound and getting close enough to put a hand over his mouth and shake him awake before Percy woke up, eyes wide with fright and hand already reaching under his pillow to pull out Animus. Vax had shushed him, pinning Percy down until the human’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness and stopped his struggling, begrudgingly following Vax out of his warm bed and out into the cool halls of the castle, where Percy had sighed and given Vax his instructions once the door had closed to the rouges bedroom.

It was only when Vax felt a tug on his hair that he realised Percy was speaking to him. “Vax, did you hear me?’

“Oh, sorry Freddy.” Vax apologised, rubbing his eyes. “What were you saying?”

“I was just inquiring as to whether you required a separate room at the castle or in Whitestone, considering you never actually answered my question, as you are sometimes prone to do.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Vax said after a soundless contemplative moment of considering. “It doesn’t happen all that often to need a whole room to be alone. And besides, I feel safer in the shadows of your fine city than I would in any room. Even in the air, I feel safe. No one to talk to up there.”

Percy hummed again, a quiet understanding sound that Vax had associated with the clinking of metal on metal, the wisps of Keyleth’s hair in his face, the force of his sister’s voice.

A nagging thought was what made Vax break the silence, and he shifted his feet as he asked. “Hey, Freddy?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you get to be so good at stitching people up? I mean, it’s not really a skill you inherently have, even if your mother was a seamstress because, I would know,  the fabric is much different than flesh. But you were a lord, a noble. There would have been no need for you to learn.”

If Vax hadn’t known him so well, he wouldn’t have noticed the faint pause in Percy’s movements, the tiny hitch in his normally steady breathing, the sudden shake to his hands.

“Uh, when I was younger, w-with my siblings,” Percy’s voice had a soft quiver to it that matched his hands. “The others played in the forest. I never did, I stayed in my workshop or the library, but instead of going to our parents when they got hurt they always came to me, even Julius. Something about getting into less trouble with me than with our parents. So I had to learn.”

The story stopped, but like he knew Percy’s anxious tells, he also knew when Percy was finished speaking and when he was just gathering his thoughts. Vax waited patiently.

“Then with _Ripley_ -” her name was spat full of bitter hatred, like scum on a boot- “I had to watch her stitch me up, so I knew how to do it because I was… so sure I would get free on my own. Then some of the men on the boats taught me, made sure I… watched and made sure I could do it on my own before I left to find her again.” _Her_ was implied, it was always _her_ , _she_ was always said with the deep-rooted disgust. “And then after, I never had enough gold for potions, and I couldn’t heal myself or find a cleric, so this was the best I could do.” He tied off the string as he spoke, breaking it off and putting it and the needle in the metal basin beside him as he picked up the cloth full of antiseptic shit that smelled like Pike’s temple in the rain and gently dabbed it on Vax’s skin.

Vax worried at his lip, suddenly sorry for asking. Percival’s breathing had quickened slightly and Vax _knew_ he should let the conversation go, to drop it like he was dropped onto the rocks. He wanted to know more about his human friend and now felt like a better time than ever. “Why were you the family default?” Vax asked, reaching up to push slipping strands back into the makeshift bun. “I mean; you’ve said it yourself- you don’t know how people work as well as you know machines. Why did your siblings go to you?”

Percy’s hands were gentle on Vax’s back as he spoke. “I suppose when you always have your nose buried within some type of manual or novel you are automatically the default for knowing things.” Although Vax couldn’t see him, he could hear the smile in Percy’s next words.  “Cassandra and Oliver used to think I knew everything.” There was love in his voice but laced with sadness, sounding like Vax did when he talked about his mother. “They would ask me the most complicated questions they knew- which were quite simple mind you- and when I got it right they were so surprised and so excited.”

The room was filled with silence for a while the quiet deafening to Vax’s ears and suddenly roaring brain. Percival had never spoken about his family with such love and such honesty or so freely. Just when Vax thought he was finished, Percy’s words began again. “I would build them things, you know,” he nearly whispered, so quiet Vax almost couldn’t hear the heartbreak in his voice. Almost. “Music boxes, toy soldiers, wind-up toys, tiny mechanical robots. I built mother a rocking chair and father-” Percy cleared his throat and abruptly stopped his words.

Vax paused. While Percy had rarely talked about his siblings, he _never_ talked about his parents. “Did your parents not approve of your interests?” He questioned tentatively, feeling Percival’s whole being tense up.

“’Not approve?’” Percy repeated with a bitter laugh that Vax was not expecting. “He hated it more than anything. Mother didn’t care as long as I continued my studies with Professor Anders, but father, he couldn’t _stand_ it.” Percy’s voice was low. “He was going to demolish my workshop; did you know that? After the feast with the Briarwood's. He was disappointed in me because I had chosen to waste my time inventing than learning to defend myself and rule in my later years. That was never supposed to be my job though, so I never saw the point.”

Now Vax _really_ wished he had dropped the subject. “I uh, never knew.” It was a lousy attempt at an apology but Vax was sure Percy understood regardless.

“It’s alright,” Percy said lightly, gliding his long slender fingers across Vax’s back. “No one did, not even Cassandra. Julius and Vesper did, because my parents told them everything, and Whitney knew because she spied on everyone.” His voice carried a hint of fondness when talking about his sister. “Fighting with a rapier was mandatory in my family, so father was not pleased to know that I was skipping my lessons to hide away in my workshop.”

“We’re you really hiding though?” Vax questioned. “Because I know you Freddy and you rarely hide from anything.”

“Is that really true, Vax?” Percy asked voice strained. “For someone as perceptive as you, I would have expected you to notice.” When Percy didn’t continue, Vax waited patiently. “I hid in my workshop when the Briarwood's came to Emon, I hid from civilisation on a fishing boat for years, I hide from the rest of you so you can’t see the terrible person I am. I am always hiding.”

“You always say that, but you’re honestly not as bad as you say you are.” Vax protested.

“You’re a fool to disagree.”

A surprising burst of anger flared up in Vax’s chest. “And you’re a fool for thinking it in the first place.”

Vax felt Percy’s hands quickly retreat from his back, felt the heavy folds of his cloak thrown over his head. “This is what I get,” Percy murmured, Vax straining to hear him. “for trying to talk to people.” Louder, he said to Vax, “Get dressed, I’m sure Keyleth is getting worried.” He strode towards the door. “And frankly, I’m rather tired and without being given a chance to grab my coat, I’m somewhat cold, so if you don’t mind-”

As Percy passed him, Vax stuck out his hand and grabbed Percy by the wrist, stopping him in his tracks. With a sharp pull, Vax spun Percy around to face him, one hand tightly gripping his wrist and the other clamping down on his shoulder, ignoring the way Percy tried to jerk away. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To _bed_ Vax,” Percy snapped, pulling his head away and twisting his wrist to break Vax’s hold. “Where we should both be headed.”

“We weren’t finished speaking.”

“Are you honestly trying to keep me captive in my own home?” Percy retorted, finally yanking his arm free, but he didn’t turn away. Even though Vax could feel the tension in his friend’s shoulder, Percy didn’t push him away. “How in the world do you expect that to go Vax? With guards down the hall and my sister a shout away?”

“My mother never let us leave the house after dark because she was afraid of the butcher’s son down the street who would stand outside our house at lunchtime, but Vex and I would sneak out through the window while she was working and go to an old birch tree in the woods by our home,” Vax said, satisfaction dawning on his face at Percy’s surprise. “When we returned from our fathers, that was the only tree left standing from the fire, and we spent the night there before we left.”

Clearing this throat, Percy opened his mouth to speak, but Vax cut him off. “My mother loved flowers, the big white ones. I can never remember their names-”

“Primrose,” Percy said softly, eyes going distant.

“Yeah primrose, Vex and I would pick them every time we went exploring and mother kept them in a little jar with our names on it that we made when we were younger.”

Percy had stopped resisting Vax’s touch, so he trailed his hand gently down his friend’s arm. “That’s very sweet.” Percy smiled, looking down at the ground. “My mother loved chrysanthemums and orange roses. She was also partial to lavender, but father was allergic, so she rarely had it in the castle.”

“It must have been hard to find those in these woods.” Vax tilted his head, “You mustn’t have been able to find her many.”

Sighing wistfully, Percy shook his head. “They were ordered from other contents and towns. No, we weren’t allowed to do anything.”

Vax was sitting down, pulling Percy down with him on the floor until they both sat cross-legged on the stone. “That’s a shame. You missed out on some great adventures.”

“Well, it would not have been… proper for young nobles to return home covered in mud and with sticks in their hair.” He shot Vax a crooked, knowing smile. “But the castle had many hidden passages that we explored.” There was a small, thoughtful smile on Percy’s face, one Vax hadn’t seen in a while. “Oliver and Whitney would play hide and seek in there, hide from our parents from their chores, hide from each of us inside the castle walls. Sometimes Cassandra would stay there and read, away from the rest of the populace.”

Nodding his understanding, Vax rubbed his hand up and down Percy’s arm until their hands were interlocked together. “And your other siblings?” He asked. “What were they like?”

“Oh, Julius and Vesper were raised from rather young to rule the city and how to look after the castle, but Julius wanted to be a paladin of Pelor, but father wouldn’t let him. Vesper fell in love with another noble from a different contentment while her family was visiting, but they left before anything could happen.”

The sudden broken floodgate that was Percy’s words had Vax blinking rapidly in surprise, never hearing his friend speak so freely and so openly about his past, the words almost overwhelming to Vax. “Ludwig was a musician, always wanting to be the centre of attention. He reminded me a little of Scanlan. He played the piano. Cassandra and I were the most similar, hiding away in the library reading, but we were never close. Whitney and Oliver were a wild wind of trouble and the castle was never quiet when they were awake.”

“You don’t talk about your family very often,” Vax tried to be uninterested, but couldn’t help the curiosity in his words and he felt Percy stiffen under his hand. “Not in the way I talk about Vex, anyway. It’s nice to hear you talk about them.”

Percy seemed to be re-evaluating his entire existence and the events that led to sitting on the floor of Vax’s room with Vax’s hands trailing across his skin like it was an everyday occurrence. He was still for a moment, gathering his thoughts and he was grateful when Vax let him think in silence, instead taking his hand and rubbing his fingers between the points of Percy’s muscles. “I think… I still miss them. It’s rather hard for me to admit it, but sometimes I can hear music coming from the music room when I pass it, or laughter in the halls, shouts in the garden. I suppose that it’s… been hard for Cassandra and I both to come to terms with their passing, and I believe that in our own existential way, we’re both still learning how to cope.”

“Well, you have been through a lot.” Vax focused on rubbing the spaces between Percy’s finger’s until his friend’s hands went limp in his grasp. “I understand that there’d be some fucked up coping mechanisms _somewhere_.” He waited for Percy to yank his hand away and storm out the door, but when he only chuckled Vax felt the power to continue. “What were your parents like?”

There was a long, wretched pause as Percy’s breath stuttered and his fingers threatened to curl into fists, but just as Vax was about to apologise and change the topic, Percy spoke, soft and gentle.  “My mother wore navy blue and vivid red dresses.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “She would tie bows in the girls’ hair, big billowy ones. I think Cassandra still has some in her drawers. She clapped along to all our performances and would laugh at our jokes. She would hold us when we cried and hug us after nightmares. It was always her that would tempt me out of my workshop in the early mornings with promises of hot chocolate and muffins.”

Vax had never seen his friend so tender and was almost afraid to ruin it. “She sounds lovely.” Percy hummed, eyes glued un-seeing to the floor. “What about your father?”

Percy hesitated, taking a deep breath. “I loved him like I loved any other member of my family, but he… didn’t approve of my… hobby. I suppose I resented him for it, that out of his seven children it was my hobby he had the issue with. He always put up with Vesper’s knitting and Julius’ painting, Ludwig’s musical tendencies, Cassandra’s dancing and the twin’s pranking, but tinkering was just too ludicrous for him.”

“That must have been hard,” Vax muttering his sympathy and Percy hummed his agreement. Vax had moved on to tracing the scars and calluses on Percy’s hands with his nails when he looked up. “Wait, Cassandra dances?”

“Oh yes,” There was that smile again, small and sweet, “she was quite good.”

“I would have loved to see that,” Vax smiled. “Percival?”

“Yes?”

“You know we’re friends, right?”

Blinking, Percy met Vax’s eyes. “I, uh, I suppose after… after the, uh, I-”

“Because we are.” Vax insisted. “Friends I mean. If you’ll have me, I would happily be your friend again.”

Percy’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the catch?”

“Why must you always be so suspicious?” Vax cried, throwing his arms up in the air, wincing as the motion tugged on his stitches. “Can’t I just want to be your friend? Is that too much to ask?”

“You don’t lead the life I live, Vax, without learning to be wearily about people’s methods and reasoning’s behind their actions. Nobody just wants to be friends for nothing.”

Sighing inwardly, Vax said, “Well, I still don’t trust you but-”

“Ah,” Percy’s voice was soft. “And there’s the catch.”

“You were the one who suggested it!” Vax exclaimed, glowering at Percy. “How can you be unhappy about a decision if it was _your_ decision?”

“Trust is a… very important word,” Percy explained, threading his fingers together. “If there is no trust, between a couple, a friendship or a family, it all falls to pieces. My father did not trust me to be truthful about my work efforts and to catch up on my lessons with the instructor, my siblings did not trust me to arrive anywhere on time. No trust is bad, but too much trust I worse. I had friends I trusted shove me into piles of mud once they found out who I am. We trusted the Briarwood's. I trusted Professor Anders. I trusted Orthax. You all trusted me to keep you safe and I’ve killed us twice. Trust is a very prominent thing.”

“Well,” Vax said slowly. “Do you trust me?”

“With my life.” The answer was instant, without hesitation, and once again Vax was struck by how different his friend was at this moment compared to every other time. “I just know none of you will ever trust me again, and I’m not willing to give you a reason why you should yet.”

Frustrated, Vax sighed out his nose, dragging his nails gently across Percy’s flesh and feeling the scars, rough under his fingertips. “I still love you, Percy, that hasn’t changed. I want to be your friend again, but just because you and I haven’t always gotten along doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a chance to regain my trust.”

“I don’t think you understand, Vax.” Percy’s voice was stiff, stern, dangerous. “I don’t even trust _myself_. Vex worries that one day I will be too far gone and frankly, so am I. I can still feel Orthax’s influence bubbling beneath my skin and… sometimes I can hear him in my mind, a fragment of what once was influencing my thoughts. I do not want to do the things I do, but they occur by my hand and the choices I make are ones I must live with.” He took a deep breath. “My actions sometimes scare me, but in the end, I will die and be sentenced to whatever punishment and I will be… content.”

“You’re not a bad person, Percival,” Vax said gently. “Sometimes, yeah, you do some fucked up shit. But you’re still my brother. And I still love you.”

“I have been thinking, quite often honestly, about selling my soul to that demon we met in Dis to get you out of your contract with the Raven Queen,” Percy said suddenly, making Vax choke.

“You _what_?” He asked, flabbergasted. “Percy, why?”

“Because it is my fault and I feel that I deserve the punishment more than you do.” Percy was very deliberately avoiding Vax’s gaze.

“I would never allow you to do ruin yourself like that.” Vax insisted lowly.

Percy sighed, pulling his arms from Vax’s grip and wiping his hands on his thighs. “Well, I am already doomed so I don’t know what difference it would make.”

“Percival-”

But Percy was already standing, stretching his arms above his head and sighing in exhaustion. “I believe it’s time for bed.” He muttered. “I’m sure the women will be worried. I promised Cassandra and your sister that I wouldn’t sneak out anymore and that I’d be where they left me in the morning. I’m sure you made Kiki the same sort of promise.” He smiled, walking to the door. As an afterthought, he turned to Vax, head poking back into the room. “If you ever need some late night company or… conversation, you know where my quarters are. I’m happy to indulge you. You don’t need to go get yourself injured for nothing.”

Then he was gone and Vax was left sighing, wondering how different it would be to have the honest, open, calm Percival of tonight instead of the wild fury of the everyday.

Climbing back into bed, he kissed Keyleth on the head and dreamt of black smoke and gunshots and a castle full of loving, happy children.


End file.
